Project Type

OCAD U​ Strategic Foresight and Innovation Project and People's Choice Award Winner for Map the System Competition at Ryerson University | Contributor with Molly Connor and Andrew Walls

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Overview

This systems project was founded on an interest in the provision of public services, and specifically public washrooms, after reading Lezlie Lowe's book, No Place To Go. Our topic was targeted at helping us answer the following research question: How might we assess public washrooms as a barometer of the challenges we face as a society? We also presented this project at Ryerson University's Map the System Competition, where we won the People's Choice Award. 

 

We decided to use the geographical boundary of San Francisco for our research, given its recent concerns around access to public washrooms and public defecation. After our initial research, we chose to centre our map along the user journey process of searching for a public washroom. This allowed us to break the issue down into four categories:

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1. Public Demand for Washrooms

2. Provision of Public Washrooms

3. Accessibility of Public Washrooms

4. Maintenance and Operations of Public Washrooms

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Our Process

• Historical Analysis

• Secondary Research

• Expert Interviews

• Causal Layered Analysis (CLA)​

• User Journey Map​

• Stakeholder Assessment

• Systems Mapping

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Outputs

• A synthesis map overviewing the system that this issue operates within

• A written report outlining our findings

• A presentation of our findings